1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to the field of audio analysis and the identification of animal species based on their vocalizations.
2. Description of the Related Art
Many people want to identify unknown singing birds and other animals. From families with backyard bird feeders to beginning and even experienced bird watchers, knowing the identity of a singing bird is a goal shared by many.
Most animal species have characteristic vocalizations that make identifying the species possible. An example of this is bird songs or frog croaks, which vary much more between species than within a species. If one were able to make a “sonic dictionary” of the typical vocalizations of a number of species, one could build a computer “expert system” to identify species based solely on their vocalizations.
Current technology for bird song identification consists of transliterations in printed field guides with personalized use of vowels and consonants, for example using a phrase like “tseet tseet tseeo” to try and replicate the sound of a particular species so that another person could use these to match the vocalization of an unknown species.
All computer programs and applications for mobile devices designed to help identify a vocalizing animal only present prior recordings of various species, leaving it to the end user to play through potentially many files and attempt to match one file to the unknown vocalization.
Therefore, a system and method which can quickly narrow the search through these recording files to a few or one species, based on a new and unknown vocalization, is desired.